Entry Points Radio is back with Part 2 of our conversation with TaraxBella, the extraordinary sister duo from Abuja, Nigeria. After internet connectivity issues forced Tara and Bella to jump off early — because Nigerian internet had other plans — Kate and Richie keep the conversation going with the songs they had chosen for the week.

Richie’s list moves from hidden histories to big feelings: Big Mama Thornton’s original “Hound Dog” before Elvis made it famous, Duke Ellington’s “Mood Indigo,” Max Richter’s “On the Nature of Daylight,” Chilean artist Nekki and the power of roots, The Cranberries’ “Zombie,” Fabrizio De André’s Italian song about the Sand Creek Massacre, Sinead O’Connor, and a Swiss vocal tradition involving mountains, bells, overtones, and one bad European mustache era.

Kate’s list follows the thread of protest, simplicity, grief, beauty, and not knowing how to be a person in a world on fire: Joan Baez’s “There But for Fortune,” Clairo’s “Alewife,” Bob Dylan’s “Gates of Eden,” Stromae’s “Fils de joie,” Jacob Banks, Moroccan artist Ouidad, The Breath’s “Let It Calm You Down,” and the Sikh singer Bhai Mehal Singh Ji — whose music becomes an entry point into Sikh devotional tradition, service, and the powerful presence of Nihang Sikhs at the recent protests in India.

Along the way, we talk about who gets credit for music, what songs reveal when you actually listen to them, why folk music once felt so politically alive, how identity gets complicated by borders and belonging, and why sometimes the only honest answer is: we don’t know what to do, but we’re still listening.

Also discussed: Elvis’s nose, Colorado having far more sides than anyone asked for, whether we are all becoming jaded folk singers, Alaska again obviously, and the eternal truth that sometimes everything matters and nothing matters and somehow music still helps.

Produced and Edited by Kate Bass and Richard Steighner

Full Playlist on Spotify:

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3BHFLJuPtM2lPajZbV9ZJC?si=VVFQKRCPT2eo_BzGO046Nw

Full Playlist on Apple Music:

https://music.apple.com/us/playlist/entry-points-7/pl.u-JPAZE8ZIBRlqZb

Watch/Subscribe on YouTube:

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLXgeSnlkZC_zdaWytIIUx8iA-mDGRnVVQ&si=70zPI3tyslA6xVqP

Deezer:

https://www.deezer.com/us/show/1003292131

Amazon:

https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/e5cab8c2-ae60-4411-966b-b3d42257fec3/entry-points-radio

iHeartRadio:

https://www.iheart.com/podcast/337398467/

Substack:

https://globalmusiccollective.substack.com/

Support us on Patreon for the Full Playlist Archive:

https://www.patreon.com/cw/EntryPointsRadio